“There`s another reality Mr. Bush is facing up to and it`s called the Hispanic vote. Paleocons and nativists may think the key GOP demographic is uneducated whites. But it`s hard to imagine a majority Republican future without at least being competitive among Hispanics. In this sense, the guest-worker proposal isn`t just an exercise in economic sanity but also in long-term party building on a par with FDR`s capture of the black vote.”

“Uneducated whites.” Thanks a lot, guys. I suppose they mean uneducated by comparison with the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal. But really, what kind of a thing is that to say?

There`s a simple arithmetical point here: the WSJ-level “educated” are, let us say, the top 2% of the population. They?re outnumbered when it comes to voting, by the other 98%. If the Republican Party doesn’t appeal to the “uneducated” it will be about as big as the Green Party.

“Buchanan crowds don`t look like Republican crowds,” [David] Brooks sneered. “There are none of those Chamber of Commerce officers in golf shirts and tasselled loafers. Instead, Buchanan draws the beefy, 300-pound guys with tattoos up their arms and sleeveless T-shirts. He draws the guys with shaggy biker beards and the Teamsters who park their rigs in the lot and get hoarse shouting, `Go, Pat, go!` It may be hard to classify exactly which political category these people belong to, but they are certainly not Republicans.” [“Buchanan Feeds Class War in the Information Age” David Brooks, LA Times, Oct 31, 1999]
Actually, it`s not so hard to classify which political category such people belong to. They`re called `Democrats,` and the contempt for them that our Mr. Brooks exudes helps explain why they never show up in the crowds around other Republican candidates.